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Frustrating though it was, it did make for an interesting puzzle. How many years had it been since he'd found a lock that he couldn't break? It was a fun exercise in its own way.

Qorvass sure wasn't cooperative, though. As was to be expected, he supposed. Several times, Morgunov had broken Asad's body down to more than little fleshy piles, and Qorvass kept trying to refuse regenerating him.

'I won't help you torture him,' the reaper told him.

No doubt, he was worried that Morgunov was just trying to drive the kid mad, and no amount of explaining could change that stubborn little mind, it seemed.

How did Qorvass not understand he was doing them a favor? They'd be able to contact their precious Rasalased once this was over. Surely, that was more valuable than any momentary discomfort.

And okay, yeah, maybe an entire month was a pretty long moment, but hey, time was relative. In fact, depending on who you talked to, time might not even be a real thing.

Qorvass didn't want to see reason, however, so Morgunov resorted to ol' reliable. The tactic that never failed.

Threatening to kill the other hostages if he didn't cooperate.

To the reaper's credit, he tried to remain strong even then, tried to play it off like the loss of all these Vanguardian generals and their reapers would be no big deal to him.

But Morgunov knew better, of course. Qorvass might've had the appearance of a broken clock, but he was no machine. Not even close. The reaper was a big softy when it came down to it. That was one of his more endearing traits, actually.

And sure enough, Qorvass caved not long after that. It helped that his boys had brought some more Sandlord hostages in, but only in terms of speeding things along. No way ol' Qorvy would've let the Vannies bite the big one so easily.